Changing tracts for a moment; scientists have made an incredible discovery that alters not only how we understand the deep ocean, but also may alter what we know about the Earth's supply of the very oxygen we breathe - and unsurprisingly, capitalists are already working on fucking that up without the slightest care in the world for the harm it may cause our biosphere.
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c728ven2v9eo
Oxygen discovery defies knowledge of the deep ocean
"About half the oxygen we breathe comes from the ocean. But, before this discovery, it was understood that it was made by marine plants photosynthesizing - something that requires sunlight.
Here, at depths of 5km, where no sunlight can penetrate, the oxygen appears to be produced by naturally occurring metallic “nodules” which split seawater - H2O - into hydrogen and oxygen."
The article goes on to describe how we discovered these deep sea nodules which may take millions of years to form, what it means that oxygen is being produced without marine plant photosynthesis, and how this probably changes our understanding of deep sea life that likely depends on that oxygen (fish need oxygen, they just get it differently than we do.) Science lovers are encourage to read the whole piece.
What I want to focus on here however, is the fact that immediately after we've discovered this natural wonder, deep sea mining companies and resource-hungry capitalists are looking to literally rip these metallic nodules from the sea floor with virtually no concern for how that might affect our oceans, or even life on Earth.
"And because these nodules contain metals like lithium, cobalt and copper - all of which are needed to make batteries - many mining companies are developing technology to collect them and bring them to the surface.
But Prof Sweetman says the dark oxygen they make could also support life on the seafloor. And his discovery, published in the journal Nature Geoscience, raises new concerns about the risks of proposed deep-sea mining ventures."
Are life-giving, water oxygenating metallic nodules our only source of lithium, cobalt, and copper? Nope. Have deep sea mining companies studied the potential harm harvesting these nodules might cause? Nope. Might ripping them out of the water affect the delicate balance of not only ocean life but potentially how the oxygen we breath is distributed across multiple ecosystems and even the whole planet? Yeap. Does capitalism give a shit about any of that? Apparently not. The simple truth here is that we don't know how important these nodules are, and if the capitalists have their way we're going to start destroying them to make batteries before we even find out.
Look you can call me an alarmist if it'll make you feel better, but this story is merely a microcosm of the entire reason you're living on a boiling planet, facing down a mass extinction event that may well wipe out billions of people and destroy a habitable biosphere for countless other species as well.
We live in an extractivist culture, driven by the capitalist profit motive, where time and time again the need to keep stacking money for incomprehensibly rich ghouls is prioritized over not only nature, but the very survival of the human species. Capitalism is killing us, and literally nobody in the wealthy ruling classes, or the governments they've bought lock stock and barrel is doing anything about it, or shows any signs of even *trying* to do anything about it.
I don't know if tearing metallic nodules that produce dark oxygen from the ocean floor to make more Tesla batteries will compromise the planet's supply of the precious air we all breathe or not. But neither do the rich bastards that want to do it anyway. And you and I both know that if even if they did know, they wouldn't care.
At some point the human species is going to have to get serious about prioritizing life on Earth over the material demands of capitalists and rich people, or we're going to run out of life to commodify; or you know, the very air necessary to sustain our own existence as animals on a planet uniquely capable of supporting that life. One thing I *can* tell you is that after hundreds of years of capitalist predation of our shared biosphere, it is clear beyond a shadow of a doubt that neither the capitalists, nor the states they own, are going to make the right choices to ensure our survival, for us.
#ClimateCrisis #DarkOxygen #Capitalism #OceanLife
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